Mayor of Kharkov, Ukraine shot in back, hospitalized - press service

The mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov, Gennady Kernes, has been shot in the back, the city council’s press service reports. He is currently in serious condition in one of the city’s hospitals.

Kernes was shot while cycling on a road in the north of the city,
Yury Sidorenko, of the mayor’s press service, told RT.

“They shot him in the back from the forest,” Kernes’s
friend Yury Sapronov said. “The injury is serious. His lung
is pierced and his liver pierced all the way through.”

The mayor was taken to the local hospital at about 11:30 am (8:30
GMT) local time.

Following an operation that lasted two hours, Valery Boyko, the
surgeon who was treating Kernes, called his condition serious as
his diaphragm had been injured. He also said that his interior
organs have been damaged and he will remain in serious condition
for at least several days.

Boyko said that the doctors had stopped the bleeding, but that
Kernes is currently unconscious.

“The operation was performed successfully. Now we rely on God
and wish strength to Gennady Kernes,” he added.

Meanwhile, Sidorenko, of mayor’s press service, declined to
comment about who was behind the shooting. He only told RT that
Kernes “has been recently receiving a lot of threats from
various people.”

A shell “allegedly from sniper rifle” was found at the
site where the mayor was shot, Irina Kushchenko, from the public
relations department of the city’s Executive Committee.

Party of Regions presidential candidate Mikhail Dobkin, a close
friend of Kernes, said the gunman used live fire. According to
Dobkin, there was a 7.62 mm shell from a Dragunov sniper rifle.

An unexploded grenade has also been found at the scene where the
mayor was shot, Mikhail Dobkin has told local media.

“At the spot where he fell, a grenade without a pin was
found,” he said, as cited by ITAR-TASS news agency. “By
a lucky chance, it did not explode.”

A mayor of Kharkov since March 2010, Kernes had been a strong
supporter of President Viktor Yanukovich right till his ouster in
February. Since then he supported the new Ukrainian authorities
and kept his position.

The shooting comes a day after ultranationalists clashed with
anti-government protesters in the city, leaving 14 people
injured.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian presidential candidate Oleg Tsarev condemned
the attack on the Kharkov mayor. He said that despite his and
Kernes’ political rivalry, the attack outraged him.

“Shooting at the politicians is wrong. Once again it shows
that it is impossible to hold presidential elections until we
reach consensus and civil peace,” he added.

Kharkov mayor and Party of Regions member Gennady Kernes was born
June 27, 1959, in Kharkov, then in the Ukrainian SSR. He is a
lawyer and manager by profession.

A miner in the late 70s, Kernes became engaged in politics in
1998, when he ran for the Kharkov City Council.

In 2004, Kernes was an enthusiastic supporter of the Orange
Revolution. Political alliances secured him the mayor’s post on
October 31, 2010, after Mikhail Dobkin had become head of the
regional state administration. The results, which were
overwhelmingly in his favor again, were controversial and came
under suspicion from critics. During his tenure as mayor, he has
become well known among locals for his far-reaching city reforms
and his contributions to development and charitable causes.

However, Kernes’s past is also entangled with Ukraine’s
underworld – among other things, he was allegedly the boss of his
own criminal organization, which gained notoriety in the region.
He was also convicted of theft and fraud.

Since the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, he has been accused of
fomenting separatism. In January, he gave himself a controversial
25 percent pay rise.

Kernes was awarded many political honors in his time. He is a
father of three children. His hobbies, among other things,
include actively promoting and leading a healthy lifestyle.

Thousands of anti-government demonstrations have swept eastern
Ukraine since March, with administration buildings being seized
in several cities, including Kharkov, the largest city.

At the beginning of March some 111 people were injured in clashes
between anti-government protesters and radical nationalists in
the city after the radical groups then seized the administration
building. Commenting on the incident, Mayor Kernes said they were
ultra nationalist elements “who hid their faces behind masks
and had weapons, including automatic ones,” adding that
“it turned out that these men came from western Ukraine –
from Lvov, Ivano-Frankovsk.”